The board of directors of the Northwest Broadcast News Association has been considering a change to the name of the organization. As journalists, we are very conscious of the importance of words and how there is no substitute for the right words. As writers, we are mindful of our heritage. And as a forward-looking service organization, we want to ensure we continue to serve the changing needs of our members.
Some History
For more than 60 years, we have been an important resource for electronic journalists across the six-states are we serve. Regional journalism organizations like ours are not common across the country; most are either national, such as the Radio Television Digital News Association or are focused on a single state like the Iowa Broadcast News Association. Our current name reflects the both the geography and the era in which it was developed.
Northwest: Since before the civil war, states and territories like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa (or most areas north and west of Chicago, the largest city in our part of the still-growing nation) were popularly known as the “Northwest”. The “Midwest” was loosely defined as states like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. But even by the time of our founding in the late 1940′s, the terms had become somewhat outdated, as the rest of the country viewed states like Washington, Idaho and Oregon as the Northwest. More people began thinking of our north-central states as the Midwest, or to avoid confusion with those south or east of Chicago, the phrase “Upper Midwest” is often used today to define states from Wisconsin to as far away as Montana. The term Northwest lingered in our vernacular for a long time, bolstered by dominant radio station WCCO in Minneapolis, which for decades called itself the “Good Neighbor to the Northwest”, and by the now-defunct Northwest Airlines which had been headquartered in Minnesota until being bought out by Atlanta-based Delta Airlines. The word Northwest confers a feeling of heritage but may have long since reached its peak of popularity to define our area. We are wondering if a change to the word Midwest or some other term might be more widely understood to indicate our geographic location, and have debated whether having a geographically-based name at all is useful.
Broadcast: While today, the word “broadcast” encompasses several delivery platforms, in 1948 it principally meant radio, which was then still the dominant method of electronic communication as television was still in its emerging days in post-war America and no one had conceived of the Internet. Most of our members were radio news managers in the early days, joined by their television brethren as the “new” medium gained acceptance. We still broadcast today, via radio, television, our computers and our mobile devices. Even thought the spell-checker on the computer on which this article is being typed doesn’t recognize them, new terms like “podcast” for audio and “vodcast” for video have come into more common usage for packaged programs delivered online. One of our partner organizations at the national level used to be called the Radio Television News Directors Association and recently changed their name to the Radio Television Digital News Association, both to reflect their membership policy opening from only news managers to all working electronic journalists (dropping “News Directors” from their name) and adding the word “digital” to reflect the newer media reaching consumers of our journalistic output.
News: The word “news” carries a wide variety of meanings. For some, the word “journalist” conveyed a mental image of someone writing for a newspaper rather than a broadcaster using the spoken word on radio and television. With the proliferation of the Internet as a source of news from both professional and citizen journalists the terms have become less strictly defined. In considering different possible names for the group, we are mindful that there are already several service organizations at the regional and national level that use the words “journalist” or “journalism” in their names.
Association: The word “Association” is probably the most common one used to define a trade-based group united for common purposes. For some it may suggest a political lobbying type of organization; for others it implies a broader agenda of advocacy and promotion of a profession. We use Association for our activities that advocate for, support and educate journalists and future journalists and we use ‘Foundation” for our fundraising arm.
Many Potential Choices
Many possible names and configurations have been suggested, leading to an understandably complex conversation about our mission, our audience and our future. Should we change or eliminate the geographic part of our name? With the Internet allowing our content to be consumed anywhere on the planet, is a geographic name needed or does it help define where our members live? Should we follow the lead of our RTDNA friends and update our name to include a broader electronic or digital reference? Or perhaps are broadcasters, even with their digital platforms, still our primary concern? Should we use news, journalism or another word to define our area of interest? Are we an Association, a Society or something else? No formal list of choices has been developed for discussion but many suggestions have been made over the past couple of years:
- Midwest Broadcast News Association
- Northwest Digital News Association
- Midwest Digital News Association
- Northwest Electronic Journalists Association
- Midwest Electronic Journalism Association
- Midwest News Association
- Midwest Electronic Media Association
- Upper Midwest News Association
- Midwest Journalism Association
- Midwest Digital Journalism Association
- Digital News Association
- Digital Media Association
- Digital Journalism Association
And you could substitute the word Association above with any of these group names from the thesaurus if it made for a more pleasing sounding name or acronym to the ear: Alliance, club, coalition, confederation, congress, cooperative, federation, fellowship, guild, league, organization, partnership, society, syndicate are all group terms. Some have pointed out that while they have built many years of familiarity with their name, the acronym RTDNA is a tongue-twister… as is NBNA to some extent. Would NDNA, MDNA, MEJA, MJC, DNS or some other combination sound better? Will a different name sound to similar to another existing organization with a similar mission? Will people inside or outside our profession understand who we are? And as a secondary consideration, are things like website domain names or Twitter and Facebook user names available for whatever new name we choose? Or should we just leave it as it is?
We Want Your Input
What do you think about a name change? How best should we modernize and/or refocus our name to reflect our mission and goals? Which words do you think reflect the rapid changes in our profession and will have a meaning that will serve us well for the next 60 years? Please let us know in the comments section below or contact us to give us your thoughts. The board will be considering this issue at its next meeting with the hope of bringing a proposal for a vote of the membership at an upcoming convention. As you can see, it is a complex issue. We want your help to make the best decision we can.
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